Dental business strategy looks very different when it comes from someone who has been inside both the treatment room and the boardroom — and Dr. Jen Derse has spent more than twenty years in both. On this episode of The Technology Evangelist Podcast, host Dr. John Flucke sits down with the co-founder of Espire Dental, former Chief Clinical Director, and founder of Derse Dental Strategy for a wide-ranging conversation about practice culture, team leadership, technology adoption, the psychology of patient care, and what it actually takes to help good dentists become great practice owners. This episode is brought to you by Medidenta Digital Solutions, the proud sponsor making this podcast possible.
Key Insights on Dental Business Strategy and Practice Leadership:
- An Origin Story That Starts With a Deer: Dr. Derse’s story begins before she was even born — with her father, a state patrol officer, speeding toward the hospital when her mother went into early labor, only to hit a deer on the interstate and wreck the car before making it to her delivery. He was fine. She arrived 24 hours later anyway. She describes that story as emblematic of how life works: things feel urgent and chaotic, and then they work out on their own timeline. From there, she describes a path through music, tennis, pre-med, and a fateful dental appointment that convinced her dentistry was the right profession — the dentist was happy, patients brought him cookies and produce from their farms, and it was, as she put it, guaranteed work at the right end of the body.
- From Espire Dental to Derse Dental Strategy: Dr. Derse co-founded Espire Dental and helped build it from a single practice to 39 locations and more than 500 team members, serving as Chief Clinical Director throughout the organization’s growth. That experience gave her a vantage point most dental educators do not have: she was simultaneously mentoring clinicians chairside, building systems across multiple locations, managing different personality types in different markets, and navigating the operational realities of a growing group practice. Today she applies all of that through Derse Dental Strategy, a coaching and consulting platform focused on private practice owners and their teams — working on the quality of the dentistry, the communication systems surrounding it, and the leadership culture that makes good ideas stick.
- Communication Is Kindness: One of Dr. Derse’s core coaching principles is that communication and clarity are both forms of kindness. She argues that when doctors withhold feedback — whether because they are conflict-averse, too busy, or simply not used to giving it — they are not being kind to their team members. They are leaving people to operate without the information they need to improve. Her approach to correction is explicit: start from a place of genuine belief in the person, frame the correction as being in service of their growth, and deliver it privately and constructively. She contrasts this with the common pattern of only addressing team members when something goes wrong, which conditions people to hear their name called as a precursor to criticism rather than support.
- The Instrument-Flinging Doctor and What It Costs a Practice: Dr. Derse and Dr. Flucke share parallel stories about working environments where poor leadership drove away talented team members. Dr. Flucke describes a dental assistant who told him her previous employer would fling instruments across the operatory in frustration — the wall behind him was dented. Dr. Derse reflects that beyond the obvious human cost, behavior like that communicates to the team and the patient that the doctor is operating from fear or ego rather than confidence. Patients, she notes, are fully capable of reading a room. They notice tension. And they draw conclusions about whether the person holding the handpiece in their mouth is someone they trust. The dental business strategy implication is direct: culture is not a soft concept. It is a clinical risk factor.
- AI and the Return of Human Connection: Both Dr. Derse and Dr. Flucke are enthusiastic about artificial intelligence in dentistry — but for a reason that is not primarily about efficiency. Their shared conviction is that AI’s most important contribution to the dental practice will be freeing front desk teams from the time-consuming, interruption-prone tasks that currently keep them from being present with patients. Insurance verification calls that run an hour. Confirmation workflows that consume entire mornings. Appointment scheduling that pulls a coordinator away from the person standing in front of them. When those tasks are handled by automated systems, the people in the office can go back to being people — greeting patients by name, asking how their kids are doing, making someone feel like they are known. That, they both argue, is the thing no technology will ever replace and the thing that drives case acceptance, loyalty, and referrals more than any marketing campaign.
- The Theresa Story — Hiring for Hospitality: Dr. Derse shares the story of hiring a front desk coordinator she first encountered selling cosmetics at Nordstrom. The woman had sold her red lipstick — something she had no intention of buying — and Dr. Derse thought if she could do that, she could certainly help patients accept treatment. In the office, that team member became what Dr. Derse calls a golden retriever of dental hospitality: she greeted every patient like a long-lost friend, made sure they had coffee, offered to come out from behind the desk to introduce herself, and made everyone in the building feel welcome. When she left, patients asked where she was for months. The dental business strategy lesson Dr. Derse draws is that some hires are multipliers — not because of their technical skills but because of their ability to make people feel safe, seen, and cared for.
- Technology Adoption and the Buy-In Meeting: Dr. Flucke describes his own approach to introducing new technology into a practice: before anything arrives, he holds a staff meeting, assigns each department to think through how the change will affect them, buys lunch, and gives everyone a chance to voice concerns. The result is that by the time a new system is installed, no one is surprised, many are genuinely excited, and the people who were hesitant have already had their questions answered by a peer rather than a pitch. Dr. Derse echoes this approach in her coaching work, noting that resistance to technology is almost never about the technology itself — it is about people feeling like things are being done to them rather than with them. Practices that involve their teams in the adoption process see faster implementation, fewer workarounds, and lower turnover.
- The Hybrid Learning Argument: A recurring thread in this episode is the relationship between digital learning tools and in-person clinical education. Both Dr. Derse and Dr. Flucke are enthusiastic adopters of technology who still believe that nothing replaces hands-on experience, in-person mentorship, and the energy of a room full of engaged clinicians working through ideas together. Dr. Derse describes this as the hybridization opportunity — using digital resources to extend and accelerate learning between live events, rather than as a substitute for them. She notes that some of the most valuable professional relationships in her career began in a room at a continuing education course, not on a webinar, and that those relationships are what made her calls to trusted colleagues possible when a difficult case needed a second opinion at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. The dental business strategy implication: invest in both, and do not let either crowd the other out.
- The Clinical Journal — A Low-Tech Knowledge System: Dr. Flucke shares a practice from early in his career that Dr. Derse responds to with genuine enthusiasm: keeping a handwritten clinical journal. At the end of challenging days, he would sit down and write what he had learned — from a difficult case, an instrument choice that surprised him, a patient interaction that went unexpectedly well or poorly. The result was a searchable record of his own evolving clinical judgment that he could return to months later when a similar situation arose. Dr. Derse connects this to her own coaching philosophy: the practices that improve fastest are the ones that build systems for capturing and transferring knowledge internally, not just the ones with the best hardware.
Dr. Jen Derse has spent two decades building practices, leading teams, and watching what separates the offices that thrive from the ones that stall — and her conclusion is that the answer is almost never clinical. It is cultural, communicative, and strategic. Whether you are a practice owner trying to scale, a clinician who wants to lead better, or a team member who wants to understand why some offices feel fundamentally different from others, her work is worth following. To learn more about Derse Dental Strategy or explore coaching options, visit dersedentalstrategy.com or find her on Instagram at @jenderse_dds.
